


Where You Are

by shortlived



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 18:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18371789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortlived/pseuds/shortlived
Summary: There’s no room or need for homesickness with so much to look forward to, and Green is just a phone call away, which brings Red surprising comfort.---Red travels from time to time, and Green lives his own life. They have a promise to stay in contact in this strange, new relationship of theirs.





	Where You Are

**Author's Note:**

> a songfic in the loosest sense possible.
> 
> Song: Where You Are by The Submarines. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9sSkeNdp2w )

The rain first pitters and patters on his window, spits and sighs; then the winds bring it rushing, a frantic orchestra of stampeding tauros on glass. Green leans in closer against the wall, his back to the storm, listening to the crackling connection pressed to his ear as he struggles for the voice underneath.

“Ou’re...ely...without...e? Don….et to... _pokèmon…”_

“Where the hell are you? In the middle of the sea? I can’t hear you— _Red,_ ” he interrupts himself, into the sound of Red’s voice yapping on obliviously, distantly. Great, perfect; Red knew just the best times and places to call, sometimes. “I can’t hear you, you know. Red? Can _you_ hear me? _Can. You. Hear. Me._ Dorkface. Moron. Hamburger brain— _”_

“Gɹəəu¿”

“Shit,” Green breathes, rolling his eyes as he squeezes them shut. The crescendo has fallen against his window, but the static continues on, whispering away, and who knew when they would get to talk again? Weeks, _months_. Green bites at his lower lip, too stubborn to just give up the call. But else was there, when they could barely hear one another?

“..r...en...you…”

“Red,” he cuts in again, speaking as clear as he can be over the barrier already between them, “call me another time, alright? _Another time._ I’ll wait. Red, I—”

 _Zzwromp,_ his pokègear interjects; the screeching gone, and the taut line he was battling against snapped.

Green’s eardrum hums with the the vibrations of where the static drilled in, and he sighs as he peels the phone away, relief blossoming over the lobe as he slouches against the wall at his back, head tilted where he could see window. Outside, the day was a mosaic of golds and blues, the raindrops turning into rivulets into streams, and leading into the seas that carried Red away.

 _Autumn_ , Green thinks, and the heat behind his ears prickles warmer.

 

_Outside my window_

_Reverse the rain drops_

_They'll run together_

_Like the Nile to the sea_

 

 

The ship’s hum is a constant, the sky dimmed by a night refusing to let go, the early hours of the new day stubbornly refusing to hurry. Red arches his back into the cramped chair, sore, stiff; one of the last passengers still awake.

And with that position, someone with nothing to do but wait. Sleep would be a better alternative, but his body is more stubborn than time, and he’s gone around every part of the ship available to him six times, only his eyes begging for rest. Luckier souls are bundles under blankets, backpacks for pillows, all indistinguishable mounds on the floor, lobby seats, and restaurant benches cushioned by faux leather lining.

Red digs into his jacket pockets for a fiftieth time, pulling out his pokègear. They’re too far out be used for calls or the radios, but there’s one thing, and Red smiles as he presses it on, thumb tapping at the side as he waits for the menu to appear.

Then he goes, to the one best place of the entire device: where the photos of his home await and the faces that define it, blood and family, partners and love. His mother, close-up to the waist, and another with her reclined on the settee, Pikachu on her lap; her cooking, his pokèmon; the neighbouring Oak family, Daisy always looking perfect, and a day caught with the professor out of his lab; an impromptu barbecue the two families shared, because Red had spotted another family doing, nudged Green and said, _how about a barbecue?_ , and dragged him into his ideas; more food. They’re all heads turned away and distracted, except for the few where the back of Red’s neck tingles and warms to remember him asking for a picture, you know, if it’s alright, to keep around with him. Each time he comes across those, they give him pause, warm and embarrassed.

But when he comes across _his_ , Red’s stomach does a small backflip, his heart too. Green is a fluff of ginger hair forcing the light from behind to halo his head, a confident gaze fixed on Red too intensely, his eyes gance between looking away, looking back. His toes curl inward, the blood in his body flows a little faster, and he’s forced to breathe manually, just so the air in his throat doesn’t stay lodged.

Red pulls the pokègear in privately and thinks, maybe, when his body tingles with this new kind of restless energy, that it wasn’t just the thrumming of the ship that was going to be keeping him awake.

But then his body sinks deeper somehow in his square seating, and Red fails to remember to turn the phone off as his eyes drift closed to better, more fluid memories kept inside his head.

 

_As I wait for sunrise_

_I'm worlds away_

_But all the continents dividing_

_Couldn't take you from me_

 

 

The season changes, spontaneous showers giving way to sunnier days, wild flowers lining the hillsides where the grass grows less tamed than what pretties the parks. Green pops the foil of the allergy meds and tries not to read too deeply each time he sniffs, and fails.

“Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?” chirps Bonita merrily inside the gym’s lobby, his spinda’s plush toy body tittering on the spot. Selma jumping promptly onto her feet.

“Yeah,” Green grumbles as he pasts him by, never there a day not too early for Bonita’s creepily mild temperament. He flashes his gym ID to the card reader to unlock the double doors leading into the main hall, Selma surely up his ass to get in, and the lights flicker on above head, the arrow panelling below dulled and offline.

Ida and Arabella arrive half an hour later later, Ida relaying the tragic tale of Elan’s absence involving barbecues, mixing drinks, oversharing embarrassing secrets and the contents of his food, and that cheers up Green, somewhat.

“We hear there’s a double team pair over there that got their gym young,” Ida gushes later on, during a small break. She plopped on down next to Green with her map ready, showing off the route decided to hit all of the gyms. “Me and Elan can’t wait to check it out!”

For once, Selma keeps her tuts and huffs behind a sealed mouth, but Green can still hear the clicking noise they make. She’s refused multiple times the offer to go along with the duo—”Who will represent the gym if I’m gone?” once excuse, which, “Uh, me?” Green had pointed out—, too stubborn on her dreams to challenge KanJoh’s leaders and Elite Four, and only them.

“Red’s been away for a while, hasn’t he?” Bonita pipes up from his other side, his affable aura already giving Green the usual goosebumps. “Where did you say he went?”

 _I didn’t_ rises in his throat, but it becomes stuck as Green takes in the simplified drawing of the Hoenn region, and then flips through the pages. Ida whines like a tea kettle impatiently, but Green finds what he was looking for on the last page, and drops the booklet into Bonita’s lap as he stands.

“Pick a place,” he drawls, the world map in full display. Hoenn was a small section of the bigger picture, the tip of a thumb in size to the rest. Deceptive, but perfect for a guy like Red: he loved maps that told him how much more there was to see, and made reaching the different continents look achievable than unbreachable distances.

Green had long stopped asking in their phonecalls, “So, where are you going?”, just to receive a noncommittal hum. Soon enough, he figured out the answer himself:

 

Anywhere, and everywhere.

 

_Tried to remember_

_where it was you said you'd go_

_You closed your eyes and_

_Pointed a finger at the spinning globe_

 

 

The seas lead him from waters to land, lands to forests, forests to mountaintops. Red climbs as high as he can ascend and descends as low as the caverns burrow, and he rarely sees another human for weeks, until he meets those with the same wanderlust inclinations as him. They tip heads or hats or both at one another, and then keep moving with the rolling world.

Red collects scrapes and bruises as souvenirs, tells himself that it’s always better than collecting broken bones and carries on his way. He takes photos of every little interesting thing, sending the images to Green to save as soon as he gets them, so Red can free up the space. Green complains, but he does that about everything, so that’s alright.

No two forests or open roads look the same, but Red and his pokèmon bump easily into familiar obstacles. And in the end, aren’t all structures—manmade and natural—the same, just shaped a little differently? Sometimes, Red figures these woods remind him of the ones around Kanto, or these caves remind him of Johto, or these cold nights of all cold nights, and he might be right. The ache in his feet is certainly a familiar companion.

Will he get sick of it? Will he be doing still this time next year or get tired of it then, living without a destination? Will this minimalist living grow too frustrating, the same aches and pains, the imprints of his heavy bags turning permanent in his shoulders, the calluses on his skin too hard, too stiff?

He wonders, but at the same time, the thoughts never reach his heart.

***

The weeks turn into months easily, his calls to Green becoming delayed, but not intentionally; it’s just too tempting to listen to the flirting of nature (it’s not cheating), and time zones make Green a pain in the ass if Red miscalculates. Venusaur and Pikachu love each forest they come by, and Blastoise and Lapras each sea; Snorlax battles and eats with renewed excitement in his movements, and Charizard’s flames burn hotter whenever they take flight. Then there’s following rumours of powerful pokèmon, of ruins holding secrets, and how is Red supposed to keep track of time?

There’s no room or need for homesickness with so much to look forward to, and Green is just a phone call away, which brings Red surprising comfort. It’s not until one mishap leads to a pokègear crushed, the screen splintered into pieces and turning the menu into an arts ‘n’ craft each time he boots it up.

That’s when Red thinks: _oh._

And then assuredly: _I’ll just get it fixed,_ because there’s no reason he can’t. He just needs to find somewhere to take it in, hopefully for free, and see what damage is done and how much it’ll cost. Except he can’t find a shop in the nearest town, and while there’s possible options in the next city, that’s going to be pricey, isn’t it? You can’t trust city prices. So he goes on travelling, the start of the new month bringing him a phone that won’t turn on at all.

Double _oh._

Somewhere around then is where his speed begins to slow.

Red stops one night in a hotel, the first he does deliberately than out of necessity. He puts his pokèmon to rest in a small ball holder the room offers; that, a tiny bathroom, and a single bed — decent enough for the price. He pulls the curtain by a hair to let the night outside slip in without bothering him and climbs onto the bed, his back to the window.

There isn’t much illumination outside, and the light that spills in glints dully on his pokègear’s casing, sharper where it hits the cracks of the glass. It’s the only colour the screen has displayed in weeks beyond his hazy face, and it’s not the face he wants to see.

Out of the mistakes in his trip, it’s not calling that gets Red the most.

“Hey—good night,” he mumbles to the broken device, and wonders a little more seriously about the person calling him home without a word, and making him take a second listen.

 

_Will I ever tire of all these_

_Expeditions to the unknown_

_Well I could be lying_

_Here beside you_

_No place to go_

 

 

 

Green tries calling him, once or twice.

If he thought about calling him more than that—nah; he didn’t.

Hoenn is scorching even in spring. It’s not all a surprise with what he read, but Green finds himself uncomfortable in his own skin anyway, buying another drinking bottle for the road and extra repellents. He splits off from his gym trainers early on— _all_ of them, including Selma, finally convinced to go once he announced the the gym would be closed—to take to the roads by himself, sea and land. Sure, he put up with them at the gym, but he had _limits_.

There were losers who’d complain about him not being at his “job”, but he’s been good with keeping it open as of late, so nobody worth listening to had reason to complain. A trainer’s got to have a life, and Red isn’t the only one who likes to sight-see, and explore.

And about Red, once or twice, he does think, he would like this, this, that—

If he thinks about him more than that though—nah; doesn’t happened.

There’s a trip to enjoy, after all. His route is planned efficiently but followed loosely, but stuck to most of the trip. Green makes stops into cities more often than he knows Red would, checks his pokègear signal around the tall mountains close to Lavaridge (you know, for reasons), and lets the crystallised waters take him as far out as a little town called Dewford, Gyarados smiling for days after the lengthy ride.

The sun’s turned his skin itchy in the unlucky patches the sunscreen didn’t reach, and there’s annoying bug stings that still get sore if caught. Fortunately, Green’s gotten better about covering up, and for as small as Dewford is, the local Gym Leader’s influence makes it a hotspot for trainers, and the gossip he catches actually _useful_ to hear.

It makes up for a few of his red-tinted issues.

Green spends the late evenings in his hotel room facing the sea, the double doors of his balcony open and letting in the saltwater air. There’s plenty to entertain his pokèmon, most of who are happy to unwind after their lengthy stay at the Battle Frontier. Most surprising is how they all take to the warm weather and winding beaches, even Rhyperior dozing in the sun from time to time. Which, lucky for _some_.

It would be perfect, if not for the nagging in the back of Green’s head. The same nagging that’s kept him checking his pokègear, keeping it close in his back pocket, scrolling down to the same number, the same collection of pictures.

Once or twice, Green told himself it wouldn’t bug him this much, that Red not calling—well, it was _Red._ What was there to be surprised about?

But after once or twice, he can admit—that just a little, he wants to see him.

 

Green takes his pokègear in hand one night, and selects a number.

 

_“Hey._

 

_Just remember:_

 

_Don’t be late.”_

 

_And I want you here so close to me_

_Even if my mind's wondering_

 

_“You’re_ late.”

Green’s shoulders shoot up, back hunching and arms freezing bent and before him. He spins around, eyes wide—a perfect imitation of a raticate caught in a mean look.

“I said,” Red repeats into his grin, leant back on a bench inside the Viridian Gym lobby, fists balled tight in his jacket pockets, “you’re _late.”_

A noise like a word trembles, then flutters weakly from Green’s gaping jaw, and he tries speaking again, but to no sound. Something then flickers across his eyes, and Green coughs shakily, unbending his arms and dropping them to his sides with a speed that is definitely very, very natural. He pats the sides of his jeans, straightens his back, and clears his throat again.

“What about you?” Green returns, voice clunky and oddly pitched. But his lips work to curve into a sly thing, his gaze into smooth and confident, not losing faith. “You’ve got a couple more weeks before it’s Autumn. Did you miss me?”

 _Yes. Yes, yes, yes—_ Red holds his tongue, better than he does than the swing of his mouth that wants to take up his entire face. He has to reel it in, clamp it down, not give everything away if Green won’t, and it turns into thin-lipped smirk that hurts the muscles of his cheeks.

It has to look stupid. But Red keeps it, swings his shoulders as he stands, averts his gaze with a poor act of indifference.

“I was just in the area,” he answers normal, casually, very normalcasually. His fingers squeeze tighter in his pockets, wanting to come out, move, _do something._ Something to do with Green.

( Something that isn’t a punch. )

“Oh yeah?” Green says, enticing, and what kind of something Red decides when he looks back to Green’s expression, as clumsy as his, the colour to his face betraying the lie of ease that neither of them have.

That, or it was an unfortunate sunburn. He’d find out either way.

“Yeah,” Red says back. He takes his hands out from his pockets and walks to to stand before Green, giddiness bubbling in him with every step. His hands feel clammy—and maybe they are, a little—as he presses them flat over the crisp lines of Green’s shirt, cotton, buttoned. They creep from over the bump of his collarbones, closer to his shoulders, indecisive if to curl their fingers over the curve beside his neck.

Neither: they go over and around into a hug that Red pulls himself forward with, into Green, into a kiss already burning his skin before he even meets lips. It’s soft and welcomed, despite the small way Green twitches under him at first, and then relaxes as Red feels arms around his back.

It never goes deeper than a harder press of lips, and when they pull apart, Red doesn’t know if the heat on his face is all him, all Green, or a recipe of them both. Instead he knows how difficult it is to keep his eyes on Green, this whole dating and affection thing—he’s working on it, okay. So he slips his head into the crook between Green’s neck and his arm, and, god, was being with someone always going to make him feel as stupid as this? He’ll stick to pokèmon if it gets any worse.

“Welcome back,” Red muffles breathlessly, sulkily, tipping his face closer to Green’s. There’s a chuckle in his hair, the faint touch of lips to the exposed skin on his neck.

“Dork,” Green chides, fondly. “You too.”

 

_I can never stay in one place long_

_But where you are's where I belong_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green flips the pokègear lid open, narrow-eyed and frowning.

“Did you _fall_ on it? Jeez… you tried sticking it on charge?”

Red’s frowning too, closing the latest cupboard door with no snacks. Why didn’t Green keep any snacks in his office? He was going to have to fix Green’s life up if he was going to date this guy.

_“Red—”_

Oh, right. He looks at Green. “What?”

Green lifts the pokègear. “Stop nosing. Charge? You said it was working when it got smashed.”

Red rounds over to the desk. “Yeah, but then it broke.”

But Green’s insistent over the stupid things, so Red digs into the depths of his backpack to find the core, sitting the entire time in one of the side pockets. They plug it into the device, then a socket, and just as Red suspects—

It boots.

“Oh.”

“Dumbass.”

It wasn’t a fixed screen, but there were pictures, and that was good for now. Red leans in, giving Green a peck on the cheek.

“Knew you loved me,” he coos.

 _"Ugh,_ get off me."

 

_(No place to go, oh oh)_


End file.
